Cantabio Pharmaceuticals Announces the Development of Small Molecule Chaperones of the Abeta Peptide for the Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease in Collaboration with NovAliX

PALO ALTO, Calif., April 12, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cantabio Pharmaceuticals Inc. (OTCQB:CTBO) announced today a new preclinical therapeutic program for Alzheimer’s Disease which it is pursuing through its drug discovery partnership with NovAliX. This program is aimed at the development of small molecule chaperones that stabilize the Abeta peptide, the aggregation of which is considered to be a key element in the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

This new program, which is the result of collaborative work between Cantabio and NovAliX, is based on the discovery of novel small molecules that interact with the Abeta peptide, which were identified using NovAliX’s high throughput chemical microarray based surface plasmon resonance (SPR-WORM) screen, a unique high throughput biophysics based binding assay platform.

Cantabio aims to develop a novel therapy for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, which impacts an estimated 5.4 million Americans, including 200,000 individuals below the age of 65. Alzheimer’s is the 6th leading cause of death in the United States, with 700,000 seniors expected to die in 2016 with the disease. The annual number of new cases of Alzheimer's is projected to double by 2050, with a public cost of direct care currently at $236 billion. There is currently no disease modifying treatment available for this growing problem.

Dr. Gergely Toth, Cantabio's CEO, said, "We are delighted to announce this exciting program, which fits in well with Cantabio’s existing portfolio of candidates and further demonstrates our innovative pharmacological chaperone based drug discovery approach in the field of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and related diseases. Our collaboration with NovAliX has been highly productive and has helped us to develop novel therapeutic candidates using their unique high throughput SPR-WORM screen. NovAliX has always been very supportive of our approach and vision; we look forward to continuing to work with them as our industrial partner in drug discovery and to continue to develop candidate therapies in this exciting and highly promising area. Our work gives us the potential to address important disease targets and to tackle intrinsically disordered proteins such as the Abeta peptide. The aggregation and amyloid formation of the Abeta peptide has been a major focus of Alzheimer’s disease targeted therapies, to date typically focussed on immunotherapy approaches. We believe that our Abeta small molecule pharmacological chaperone program is a strong alternative to these efforts and a novel therapeutic approach, which has the potential to be a more cost effective solution for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease."

NovAliX’s CEO Dr Denis Zeyer said, “We are happy to be working with the Cantabio team to develop exciting new technologies and to showcase the very high potential of the SPR-WORM screen to identify valuable chemical starting points for the targeting of protein – protein interactions. Cantabio’s approach to drug discovery has, we believe, high potential to produce novel, first in class therapies in these disease areas, which have a very high unmet need for disease treating drugs."

About Cantabio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Cantabio is focused on bringing novel, first in class drug candidates into clinical trials and beyond through the discovery and development of innovative pharmacological chaperone and protein delivery based therapeutics, focusing on protein systems implicated in neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and oxidative stress. More information is available at www.cantabio.com.

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